


To the Stars

by TheMoonMoths



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst Doesn't Begin to Cover It, F/M, I will finish telling it till the end, If JJ wants to give us the Titanic ending, In the afterlife, Post-Canon, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, canonverse, they have their HEA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21906220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMoonMoths/pseuds/TheMoonMoths
Summary: Rey has spent her entire life on Tatooine rebuilding the Jedi legacy. Now that her work is complete and a new generation can take over, she is finally free to reunite with her soulmate eagerly awaiting her on the other side.***Rey remembers his voice, low and rich, the curls in his dark hair, the dimples in his cheeks when he had smiled and, for a moment, it had seemed like nothing in the galaxy would ever get in their way. But years have passed since then, and memory is as fickle as the wind, and one night, as Rey is lying in the garden she realizes she can’t remember what his face looks like anymore. The harder she tries, the blurrier it becomes, and eventually she gives up. There are no holographs of him, no one to remember him for who he was, and it’s the first time in years she breaks down in tears. He now exists only in her memory. And in her memory he is loved, and cherished, and valued. Rey hopes that it is enough.It is, the stars reply.My other half. My love. My soul.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 33
Kudos: 168





	To the Stars

Rey’s first week after moving into the forlorn Lars homestead feels like a blur. 

Her new life starts with assessing the damage. She walks the silent, eerie halls, raising dust in her wake, enters every room, checks the shelves and drawers. Each nook and cranny has been looted years ago, but some of the furniture still stands. There seems to have been a fire too— some of the walls are streaked with soot, and the sand in the courtyard crater looks to be mixed with ash, though it’s hard to tell for sure. Rey does an inventory check, making a list of items she needs to buy, items she needs to repair, items she needs to scavenge. It’s a tedious process, and a trip to the closest town takes up most of the day. The suns are red and scorching, the sand, the dust and the ash — suffocating. She endures it all gladly. It is all okay. There is a lot of work to be done. 

_Rebuild_ , Rey mutters as she patches up the holes in the pourstone dome, sweat dripping down her face. _Rebuild and start again. First the house, then the temple. This is what you were meant to do. Rebuild. Fix. Heal._

By the fifth night she’s begun tallying days on her bedroom wall again. The act is so habitual, so automatic that Rey only realises what she’s done after the first line is already carved. She stares at it in wonder for a moment. Then shrugs it off and continues with it the next day. If the damage is already done, she might as well go on. 

The bond is dismembered, gaping like an uncauterised wound. Sometimes Rey feels the connection trying to kick in, wanting to bridge her with him but finding nothing but dead cold coming from the other side. It makes her nauseous the first few times, and she has to stop whatever she’s doing to steady herself. Then she gets used to it.

And so she fixes the furniture, fixes the house, even makes a little garden for herself. Not much can grow in the desert heat, Rey knows that better than anyone, but when her friends visit, they bring seeds and saplings with them, and she tries to plant them all. Most of the plants wither immediately, some last a few months and a few even survive. Her favourites are the nightbloomers gifted by Poe, the same ones she had back on Jakku. 

They're not much to look at, but, just like Rey, they bloom at night. 

It is now her favourite part of the day. The suns are hotter than the ones she’s used to, but once they set, the air is pleasantly cool. Rey loves nothing more than to lie on her back in the courtyard, breathing in the deep, honeyed scent of her flowers and gazing up at the stars in perfect silence. 

  
  
  
  


The following years are spent constructing a new Jedi temple. Her friends drop by frequently and provide her with all the resources they can spare — credits, furniture, hired workers, contacts. It’s a tiresome effort, one that takes up all her time and energy. She does it all gladly. Eventually, in the same year when Rey plucks the first premature silver hair from her bun, the building is complete. It’s not some imposing Jedi monolith of the past but a modest ziggurat the color of Tatooine sands. Rey doesn’t want to repeat the previous order’s mistakes, give in to the vanity and indifference that caused their downfall. No, she will make something else, something new. She will teach her younglings not of detachment, but of love. Love and the Force for they are one and the same. And with that in mind, she takes in her first pupils, and their training begins.

  
  


Sometimes in that soft, fleeting haze between dreams and reality, Rey could swear she feels a light caress on her face. It is a ghost of a touch, one that reminds her of soft lips she only had the privilege to kiss once many years ago. Dazed and content, she tries to lean into it, but it’s already over. Then Rey senses rather than hears a whisper coming from somewhere far, far away. 

_I love you. I love you. We’ll see each other again,_ it says. _I love you._

  
  
  


The wall is halfway filled with tally marks, and Rey realizes that she’s severely miscalculated — free space will run out a lot sooner than expected. She runs the numbers again, first by weeks, then months, and decides that from now on she’ll only tally years instead. And so that’s what she does. 

  
  
  


One day, Finn and Rose show up, and her belly is round. She flashes a smile so radiant it outshines any starlight, and they spend the evening in Rey’s courtyard drinking tea and sharing stories about the past and present. They tell her that the galaxy is thriving, that people tell stories about Rey, that she gives hope to them all. She smiles shyly and stares down at her teacup, saying nothing. 

Sleep is nowhere to be found that night. She blames it on the tea, blames it on the giggling coming from the guest bedroom. Hours pass, and she’s had enough. Rey glides out from underneath her sheets and tiptoes to the dresser from which she carefully takes out her most prized possession. It’s a black cotton shirt, way too large for her and with a hole, and she presses it to her chest. It’s the only remainder of him she has, and Rey is so petrified of damaging it she only takes it out on special occasions. Like tonight. 

She lets her nightgown drop to the ground, puts it on and gets back into the bed. After that she sleeps just fine. 

When their child is born, Finn and Rose can’t visit that often anymore. That’s okay, Rey understands. Everyone is busy with their own lives, and she, too, always has work to do. 

  
  
  


It is break time, and the younglings flock her with questions. They ask what Luke Skywalker was like, whether she can really use Force lightning, how she killed Palpatine. Is it true that the tyrant Kylo Ren was on Exegol too? 

She softly corrects that his name was Ben Solo and that he died a hero. It’s the least she can do.

  
  
  


Rey remembers his voice, low and rich, the curls in his dark hair, the dimples in his cheeks when he had smiled and, for a moment, it seemed like nothing in the galaxy would ever get in their way. But years have passed since then, and memory is as fickle as the wind, and one night, as Rey is lying in the garden she realizes she can’t remember what his face looks like anymore. The harder she tries, the blurrier it becomes, and eventually she gives up. There are no holographs of him, no one to remember him for who he was, and it’s the first time in years she breaks down in tears. He now exists only in her memory. And in her memory he is loved, and cherished, and valued. Rey hopes that it is enough. 

_It is_ , the stars reply. _My other half. My love. My soul._

  
  
  
  


Her hair is now streaked with grey, and it gets harder and harder to sleep. She tries to, desperately, because in her dreams she is young again, and so full of life, and he is there with her. In her dreams, they travel to Naboo, and Chandrila, and Kashyyyk. Their children have their father’s soulful eyes and her mother’s narrow nose, and their parents hold each other every night as they fall asleep. Then Rey wakes up alone, and that is okay. After all, dreams are stars, and stars are dreams — all so far away. There is work to be done. 

  
  
  
  


There is a youngling by the name of Edor with curly raven hair that Rey likes to muss. She’s not supposed to pick favourites, but he is definitely hers. His Force is strong, almost too strong for the boy to control, and so she puts aside extra time to train him after the rest of the children scatter for the evening. She teaches him that it is okay to feel overwhelmed and scared. That it is okay to be frustrated. She also makes sure that he comms his parents at least once a month. Rey is secretly dreading the day he leaves.

When that day eventually comes, Edor hugs her and cries. 

_He’s making it sound like we’ll never meet again,_ she thinks to herself, amused. But then Rey realizes that it might be true. Somehow along this long and winding road, she’s gotten old. 

  
  
  


Rey looks back at the temple, its warm lights shining bright yellow against a purple gradient of a dusk, the first stars beginning to sparkle in the approaching night. Many generations have passed through here, many more will come. She’s passed on all she knows, and some of her first students, now full-fledged Jedi, have already taken over the teaching mantle. A light breeze brushes against her cheek, and she shivers. Her work is now done.

It’s time.

She climbs to its roof and sits down cross-legged, breathing in the warm air that is vibrant with the smell of hot sand and sun-scorched stone.

“I’m coming, sweetheart,” she says and gently smiles at the night sky. 

_I know_ , the stars reply. _I’ll meet you on the other side._

She takes one last look around. The Force around her hums to life, and the sky hums with it, the stars blinking and twinkling in response. Rey breathes in and closes her eyes. The humming grows louder and she surrenders herself to it completely, surrenders herself with the same eagerness she showed him all those decades ago. 

Rey expects to feel something — pain or trepidation, anything. But there is nothing.

Nothing except for all-enveloping peace and the Force. 

  
  
  


The first thing she detects is the smell of the sea. It seems so real — saltwater, and seaweed, and moist green earth. Then she hears a grand crashing of waves in the distance. Sea-birds chirping. The air itself is warm and dry, and Rey feels no cold despite a strong wind blowing at her undone hair. 

When she opens her eyes, she’s back on Ahch-To. Her outfit is changed — she’s wearing the white garb from all those years ago, down to the loose tunic — more pristine looking than ever. Her hands are the next surprise — her skin is once again supple and smooth. 

It all comes back to her — how a long, long time ago she had dreamed of green lands and deep blue oceans. Somehow it had slipped from her mind. But not anymore. Then she finally lifts her eyes. 

Rey's not alone there. Far from it. There are generations of Jedi standing alongside a stone-cut path leading up the hill, all watching her silently, benevolently. Ghosts, all of them, but ones who look as real to her as the island itself. 

Some faces she recognises from sketches and statues, some others she has probably heard tales of. Rey climbs up silently, making sure to look at each and every one of them in case she misses the one she’s burning to see. A bit further up she spots some old friends — Leia and Luke, and standing next to them a young man with hair just like Ben’s but of a much lighter color. There’s a mischievous smile playing on his lips, and Rey finds herself smiling back. 

“We’ve spoken once before,” he says, and Rey recognises the voice. 

“I remember,” she says. 

The man nods his head upwards. 

“Go now,” he says gently. “He’s waiting.”

And then she sees him. Standing at the very top of the stairs, clad in the loose, black clothing, exactly how she last remembers him. Rey’s heart stops and she momentarily freezes to take him in, take in every detail of the face she’d forgotten. But that can all wait. She’s waited an entire lifetime for this.

Rey quickens her pace, nearly hopping up the last dozens of steps. He watches her frantic ascension and laughs, showing that wide, radiant grin that haunted her daydreams. 

His eyes never leave her face, not for a second, and once she’s climbed almost to the very top, he extends a hand. 

She takes it. It’s warm, and real, and better than any memory of him could ever be. 

He leans in and kisses her, again and again, all the pent-up eagerness and sorrow melting away in a heartbeat. Rey distantly remembers how this ended the last time and grabs a fistful of his shirt, pulling him closer and feels him smile against her lips, a smile she devours as the tears begin to fall. And still they don’t stop. There is a loud rustling sound in the background. It could be the waves or faraway applause. It doesn’t matter anymore. She is finally here, and he is finally with her. 

“Ben,” she laughs after they finally pull away, though close enough that all she can see is his beautiful, expressive face looking at her like she’s his world entire. 

“Rey,” he smiles back, and she touches his face, his cheek, his hair in awe. “You did so well.”

"I missed you," she urges, and wants express everything that has been built up over the decades, but nothing feels enough and the words lodge in her throat. "I missed you so much."

"I can’t wait till you see the house I’ve built for us," Ben says and leans in closer still to whisper in her ear. "It’s by the greenest meadow I could find. Every morning you’ll be greeted with fresh flowers."

She wipes away the tears from her eyes. They have no place here. 

"Is it here on Ahch-To?" she asks. 

"No. It’s a bit— further on," he explains and takes her hand again. "Are you ready?"

Rey looks back down at the smiling faces, and the ocean, and the overcast sky, and beyond it all the friends still left behind. It is a goodbye, but not a bitter one. 

"I’m ready," Rey nods, and they set off hand in hand.

To a new home in a better place. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> For Ben, the boy whose defiance shook the stars. 
> 
> You can find me on [Tumblr](https://themoonmoths.tumblr.com/)!  
> I’d love to hear your thoughts so please remember to support the writer by leaving comments and kudos! ❤️


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